1,890,513 Israeli Citizens Who Can't Complain.

I predicted that the voter turnout rate in the 2006 Israeli elections will be approximately 62%. According to the Jerusalem Post, the rate was, infact, 63.2%.

Not a bad prediction, eh?

Well, that's something like 1,890,513 Israeli citizens who can't complain when the incoming Kadima government decides to commit national suicide by giving away large tracts of land to our enemies as a reward for killing Israeli civilians. Most people call that "surrender". Imagine if Richard Nixon had said, "Oh, we're not surrendering South Vietnam. We're just 'unilaterally disengaging'. OK?"

Words don't matter, because if Olmert does what he says he is going to do, all I have to say is to hold on to your helmets and bunker down, boys - good luck to us all. We'll need it.

And to the 1,890,513 people who didn't vote: I hope you don't live in Judea, Samaria or within Kassam distance of the Olmert border.

Those Bleeping Phones

There are those people who don't set a ringtone on their mobile phone. They just leave their phone on "vibrate". They are the best because you can be in the middle of a conversation and all of a sudden the other person whips out the phone and starts talking - magic! You didn't hear it ring - how could you? You were in mid-sentence and you wonder to yourself whether or not there really is someone on the other end of the phone, or if the guy is just trying to politely get rid of you. You never heard it ring, did you?

Do telephones ring anymore? I'm not sure you why we still insist on using the word "ring" to describe what a phone does when someone calls it. Nowadays if your ringtone is actually a digitised ringing sound, people say, "Aww. Isn't that quaint." My kids don't even know what a real ringing phone sounds like. Today, phones don't ring - they beep and squawk and play music. Even the good-old regular home phone doesn't ring anymore. It "bleeps".

My ringtone is one of the standard ones that comes with the phone. It's boppy-ish. A happy, energetic and jazzy type of tune. But you can install all sorts of ringtones on your phone. There are literally thousands of them on the internet ready to download. The thought has crossed my mind to install a funny ringtone on my mobile. It would be "cute" but it would also mean breaking my ringtone mobile phone rule: if you are standing in a quiet room full of people (like in shule during the week or a lecture) and someone calls, I have to ask myself - will I be more embarassed by the ringtone than I would be by the fact that I didn't set my phone to silent mode? This is similar to my answering machine rule: if someone important rings and the answering machine picks up, will you be happy for them to hear your "clever" message, or will it be embarassing?

That thought usually saves me.

The other day someone left his mobile phone in my office and it "rang." Given my diatribe above, I use the word "rang" loosely. Very loosely. In fact, the noise that emanated from the phone was so loud and vile, that you would have a hard time classifying it as music, which is what I think it was supposed to be. On the other hand, I know someone whose ringtone is a soft and melodious tune. I asked him why he chose such a placid ringtone and his answer was that it makes him feel like he doesn't need to answer the phone.

Here's one way to have an amusing ringtone and still comply with my ringtone rule: set the phone to ring at the same pitch as a dog-whistle. You'll never know when someone is trying to call, but it will be a very amusing private joke - until the dogs come for you.

If you don't vote, you can't complain

The general elections in Israel will be held this coming Tuesday. I am still not 100% sure who to vote for. I'm also not going to reveal this information on-line. If you want to know who I ultimately decide to choose, give me a call. But I can tell you this: voting in Israel feels like a big deal - a serious decision. I feel that my vote counts for much more here than it ever did in Australia. The outcome of the elections effects the entire country, to its very core, and my vote does count.

But voting is not compulsory in Israel,. Current news reports (see Ynetnews.com, for example) state that they are expecting a lower voter turnout than in previous years. If you look at the statistics of voter turnout since the creation of the State of Israel, the voter turnout rate has declined from 86.9% in 1949 to only 68.9% in 2003. So, looking at the figures let's guess that the numbers will drop by 7% to about 62%, just to round it off.

In other words 38% of those eligible to vote won't turn up to the polling stations on election day. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website there are 5,014,622 eligible voters for this election. That means that 1,905,556 people will not bother to say what they think. Give or take x number of people who are infirm, out of the country or whatever - but you get the picture: out of 5 million eligible voters, about 2 million won't vote on Tuesday.

There is a view that not casting a vote is a political statement in and of itself, that you don't have faith in any of the candidates to do a good job. I have two answers for that:

1) One of the candidates will be elected, eventually. So you are going to end up being stuck with whoever wins anyway.
2) If you don't vote, you can't complain. But if you vote for a particular party or candidate and your choice does not win, you have still earned the moral right to complain.

If you choose not to participate in the democratic process, then you opted to have no opinion when it actually counted for something, for once. You missed your opportunity to make a difference, so who are you to complain after the polls close?

Who to vote for is not an easy choice, but it is a choice that has to be made.

The Price of Alcohol in Israel

About two weeks ago I had a sudden whim on a Friday afternoon to buy beer for Shabbat. The supermarkets had already closed and so the makolet was my only option. I bought three stubbies (small bottles) of Goldstar Beer at 8 shekels a bottle. It was a bit pricey, but the thought of the kids all having fallen asleep, and me sitting on the balcony downing a coldie or two after a big meal was good justification for the cost. What actually happened was quite different - I nodded off at the table and then crawled into bed, barely able to move after a big meal (at least I predicted the big meal correctly).

I didn't always have the means to buy overpriced alcoholic beverages. When I worked at the Windmill Hotel in 1995 for minimal wages, I always found it a challenge to buy food for Shabbat on such a low budget - but I soon got it down pat. I would go to the Machane Yehudah market and buy half a BBQ chicken and a small tub of red-cabbage salad, all for not very much money. I found a tiny makolet in Aggripas Street that sold kiddush wine for 5 shekels a bottle. I don't know exactly how they ever justified describing this drink as "wine". It was more like an alcoholic sweet grape-flavoured syrup. But it was only 5 shekels for a 750ml bottle (which I would finish either on Shabbat or during the course of the week).

I have since moved up in the world. This week we bought a lovely bottle of Yarden Muscat 2003. A very smooth, white 31-shekel sweet dessert wine. You know it's good because it has the year of manufacture as part of its name, "Ah," you say, "2003, a good year, that." I would be seriously looking forward to enjoying its delicate nose and rich pallate, but it is going to a cause far worthier than my gullet. It's a gift.

Now that's a far-cry from my Kibbutz days when during the hot evenings we used to sit around on the mirpeset of the ulpan builiding drinking 11 shekel arak. In the 11 intervening years between then and now, the same 11 shekel arak is being sold for 13 shekels. Frankly, I'm surprised that they could justify putting up the price even over such a long period. That stuff was lethal. It wouldn't put hairs on your chest, it would burn your stomach from the inside out. Boy, was it good. Some time ago I bought a bottle for old times sake. It is sitting virtually untouched in my liquor cabinet, waiting for me to have a weak nostalgic moment.

Reading is Fun

Reading is fun. I remember looking out of the car window when I was a kid and thinking that it is really wonderful that I can read all of the shop signs and street signs. It must be hard for the illiterate - how does one get by without being able to read? I mean, we read all the time. Sometimes we read the same things over and over again for no apparent reason. Here are some examples and suggestions to spice up the monotony a bit.

Cereal boxes. You can be sitting there at the breakfast table, munching away on your corn flakes when you find yourself reading the cereal box. But you read the same cereal box yesterday, and the day before. It can't be that interesting. But wait. If I was to ask you how much riboflavin there is in 100g of cornflakes, would you know? Go on. Give it your best shot.

Sitting on a bus. You read and then re-read the advertisements, just to keep busy. For entertainment, you find yourself reading the "Throwing rubbish from the bus is prohibited" sign numerous times. Next time you are on a bus, you can play a game. See how many different ways you can read each advertisement so that it has a different connotation every time. Example: "ACME acne cream. Off your face!"

Waiting rooms. Did you know that in 1972 you could buy an entire car for just $412 plus on-road costs? You should. It says so in the magazines that you read last time you were waiting to see the doctor. Have some fun. Open the magazine to whatever page and then exclaim excitedly to the stranger sitting next to you that there is a sale on in a particular shop. Stop suddenly and then say, "Oh. It says here the sale ends on 14 June 1962". It is even funnier if you name a famous department store that everyone knows went bust at least 20 years ago.

Leave comments to this blog of more examples, please, of things we read and re-read for no apparent reason and ways to make it more interesting.

The Washing Machine Challenge

I moved the washing machine the other day. No, you don't understand. This is a monster of a washing machine. It's a Maytag. A 15 year old big hunk o' metal. Leah told me not to try and move it. She said that two removalists needed to work together to get this thing off the truck and into the house, "You will only injure yourself" - a voice of reason. But did I listen?

Yeah, right.

You see, the thing that one has to understand is that you can't tell a man that something is too difficult - especially if you say that the thing is too heavy. It's a challenge that we just can't leave unanswered.

So what did I do?

"No worries. It's fine," I said. I was far too motivated to listen to the voice of reason. How could I? In fact, I had to do even better than meet the challenge, as you will soon see. So there I was, all alone - me and a washing machine that's built with more metal than a Merkava Tank. I sized it up. I imagined it growling at me like an angry bull in a ring, snorting at me, calling me a "wuss". Q: How heavy could it be? I moved it an inch or two. A: About a tonne. Far heavier than I expected. I had no idea how I would get this cube of solid metal over the bump and down the step.

The washing machine was goading me. Calling on me to give it up and go home. But I was home and I wasn't going to let an inanimate object talk me out of a challenge. No way.

But I did it, showing just enough sign of strain to prove that the thing is heavy, but not too much so as not to admit that it is too difficult. Cool. No sweat. Nothin' to it, baby.

With manly ego firmly intact, I soon got the washing machine to where it was supposed to be. Hah! And to prove to you that moving it was a piece of cake, I did it while it was fully loaded.

A History of Our Stuff

I cleaned out our store-room yesterday. Well, it's not really a store-room; it's more like a "store-corner" - a little enclave underneath our neighbour's stairs just outside our front entrance. Because it has a door, I suppose it earns the right to be called a room, despite its size or lack thereof.

Given that this store-room is under the stairs, you can imagine how the room slopes so that at the farthest point, the roof is less than 30cm from the ground. When you have accumulated as much stuff as we have over the years, it becomes more and more of a challenge to be able to fit things in. It was precisely this point that I was pondering as I repeatedly accidentally bumped my head against the sloping ceiling. I got to thinking about the history of our stuff and I came up with this fascinating timeline.

1996: Leah and I announce our engagement. You are all so generous and give us gifts, which I stored in my small bedroom.

Late 1996: Leah and I announce our forthcoming wedding. Once again, we are showered with gifts. My room begins to fill with boxes and I joke that I'm building the Great-Wall-of-Presents, which is the only visible man-made structure you can see from the doorway of my room.

January 1997: Leah and I get married and we move in to our small rented flat on Alma Road. We buy small items of furniture to make our place feel more homely. Slowly we get rid of the boxes that we found ourselves using as the coffee table and such. We also acquire more stuff for the house, as one would.

October 1997: Our first child is born. Gifts and baby stuff abound. Cots, change-tables, toys etc suddenly appear. We now officially have more stuff than we did before.

Between 1998 and 2003 we moved 3 times, each time schlepping the boxes we brought from our Alma Road flat, some we never opened again.

In 2003 we made aliyah. We purged our house of the excesses. We got rid of junk. We gave away furniture we just couldn't fit into the lift.

We arrive at our home in Ramat Beit Shemesh and we don't have any of our stuff yet. It is stuck on a boat somewhere in the middle of some expansive ocean. Our home is blissfully sparse. Three months later our lift arrives and we have stuff again. Glorious stuff. Wonderful stuff. We unpack and cull even more: why did we bother to bring this with us? What were we thinking when we packed that thing? Now we have more stuff than before, but less stuff than we expected.

In 2005 we start packing for our move to our new home in Ramat Beit Shemesh. As we pack, we find stuff to give away to charities and the like. We get rid of the contents of boxes we packed in Alma Road that we still have not opened. When we move in to our new home and start to unpack, we find even more stuff that we don't need. Stuff.

Then comes last night when I find myself crawling in the crevices between the boxes in our store-room, picking out stuff to get rid of. I am happy to report that we now have a more modest and manageable amount of stuff.

If you are reading this in the distant future, say past the year 2200, you now have a historical record of our stuff. If you can find room, please put this blog in your museum along with all the other stuff.

Personal Maxims

I have a number of personal maxims in life that I stick to (pun intended, see further) and hold by. I have evolved these principles over time to a point where they are now mantras that I trot out at the appropriate moment.

Those of you who have fallen victim to one of my "wisdoms of life" will know what I am talking about. Well, to delight my brother, as Groucho Marx once said, "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - here is one example:

You are sitting on your comfortable couch on a lazy afternoon. Golden sunlight is streaming through the curtained windows. The house is quiet and peaceful. You are completely absorbed in the latest thrilling Dan Brown novel. The story is gathering pace and the plot is about to reach a crescendo, you only have to turn that page. With uncontrollable enthusiasm you turn the page at high velocity, ripping it from the spine of the book [alternative ending: you turn the page only to realise that the author has led you into a frustrating anti-climax. In a momentary fit of rage, you hurl the offending novel at the wall and the pages rip as the book plunges to the floor, landing at an uncomfortable angle, somewhat remeniscent of the crumpled corpse of a suicide jumper at the bottom of the sky-scraper]. In my infinite wisdom (hiding behind a bookcase) I calmly suggest sticking the page back together with sticky tape. Why? Because [and here it comes] everything can be fixed with sticky tape (for an example of "everything" click here).

I have used sticky tape not only to repair books, but to (very unsuccessfully) stop leaking taps, repair telephone extension cables and to fix cars (actually, this last point is a bit of an exaggeration. I have a friend who used to drive a VW Kombi [you know who you are!] and there was a piece of sticky tape stuck to the dashboard. I was about to pry it off and he shouted, "STOP! If you remove that sticky tape, the whole car will fall apart!" Given the state of the car at the time, I didn't argue).

More: I fixed my daughter's wheelchair with sticky tape. I fixed a wall-hanging with sticky tape. I even fixed a sticky tape dispenser with sticky tape. I fixed furniture with sticky tape. I fixed bicycles with sticky tape. I even fixed my digital camera with sticky tape. Sticky tape - the most versatile invention to come out of the 20th century.

Anyway, I have other mantras and principles (covering such topics as coffee, shoelaces and beer, among others which I can't think of at the moment). What wisdoms have you developed, principles of life that you live by? I'm sure you have some.

A Bunch of Guys Sitting Around Singing

When I was on Kibbutz in 1995, we used to play a lot of basketball during the off-hours. Due to the rather high temperatures (often cooling down to around 35 degrees in the evenings), we stopped inviting each other to play ball. We just asked the other if he would like to run around and get sweaty with a bunch of guys. But that's not what I wanted to talk about today.

I remember sitting on a Shabbat afternoon with about 10 or 15 other people (at that time we were probably 19 or 20 year-olds). We were having lunch during our self-organised Shabbaton. It wasn't arranged by any particular organisation, just a bunch of friends who wanted to spend Shabbat together. I recall thinking to myself that I didn't know of any other group of 19 or 20 year-olds who would willingly give up a sunny Saturday afternoon to eat a formal meal together and sit around singing songs.

Tonight I went to a Motzei Shabbat kumzitz. The word kumzitz is Yiddish for "come-sit", in our case referring to a "sing-along"around the camp-fire. However for us it was without the camp-fire...indoors...no marshmallows. There were only about six of us, including one on the guitar and the other on a keyboard. It was really quite enjoyable - just a bunch of guys sitting around singing.

Actually, I often go to these singing evenings, but without the musical accompaniment. Often on a Friday night a particular person (who happens to have a very pleasant voice) from shule has an "oneg Shabbos" - basically, a bunch of guys sitting around singing. Surprisingly, its fun. You wouldn't really think so, but sitting in a room with a bunch of guys singing is not only a cheap form of entertainment, but it is good, wholesome fun (and you don't sweat like we did playing basketball, well, not usually). What makes it even more fun is that since you are a bunch of guys sitting around singing, if you don't know the words, or are just learning the tune (and you are quiet enough(!)), you can sort of fake it by hiding behind the other voices. That way you get the benefits of singing in the shower (ie: singing as off key, out of time and the wrong words without anyone giving you dirty looks) without getting wet.

During the course of the evening, there was some discussion about the origin of a particular tune - was it composed by a 17th century Chazzan in Portugal, or was it composed by Shlomo Carlebach? The discussion ended when one of the guys said, "It's a London Pirchei tune. One of the early ones." (London Pirchei being the name of the choir). I was astounded. He said it so authoritatively that nobody argued. Of course, if it is a London Pirchei tune, who can argue? And even if you are familiar with London Pirchei, what are the chances that you know all of the tunes, especially the early ones? I liked the answer so much, I'm going to use it myself. Next time someone says, "Is that an Elton John song?" I'll simply reply, "No. It's London Pirchei. One of the early ones". I'm sure it will floor them all, as long as I can keep a straight face.

How Things Work

Have you ever wondered how things work? I figured out how the toilet's cistern works so I could fix it without having to pay a repairman to do it. I recently managed to change a light switch in our lounge room without electrocuting myself or frying our apartment's wiring.

It bothers me just a little bit that there are things I see everyday and I don't know how they work. It bothers me because sometimes we take things for granted and don't take the trouble to figure out what makes them tick.

You have absolutely no idea what I'm going on about, do you?

Let's give an example, one that I often think about - traffic lights. How in the world do these things work? I mean, does the traffic flow twenty miles up the road affect your intersection? Certainly if a train causes the boom-gates to shut at this intersection, it will have an effect on the next intersection (perhaps a longer or shorter green light, depending on the direction of traffic). The traffic flow at that intersection will have an effect on its neighbouring intersections etc, etc, etc - until when? How far and in how many directions does the train crossing impact on the various connected intersections? A person could go through life not knowing the answer to this question.

W-Class trams are another example. You probably don't see them around too much (especially in Ramat Beit Shemesh), but if you ever peeked into the driver's cabin you would probably have noticed a wheel and a lever or two. As a kid I would try to see how the drivers actually drove the big green contraptions. From the outside, all you saw was a driver standing straight. You never saw the driver's hands move.

I also want to know how they roll up the sticky-tape in the factory and why it all doesn't just stick together in a huge jumble.

I want to know how you train a bird to return to you - wouldn't it just fly away the first time you let it go?

If you have any answers to these earth-shattering questions, let me know.

Fancy Shmancy Things

Here's my gripe: why do people insist on making things fancy, when they could just as easily have done it simply?

I'm not talking about Rolls-Royce compared to Toyota - there you have "fancy" for a reason - better quality, better features, stand-out-from-the-crowd looks etc. I'm talking about providing the exact same feature set, just fancier. On the other hand, if the more expensive product or service will actually benefit you more, then I can see a justification for buying it. My late grandfather used to say, "We are too poor to buy cheap" meaning that cheap things break and you will just have to buy them again (like my mobile phone cases).

You could say that if you have the money to buy the fancier item, then why not? Here's why not: because you are getting ripped off! I remember shopping in K-mart once for a sandwhich toaster. I recall that the higher-priced ones were identical to the lower-priced ones, except that the more expensive ones had more plastic mouldings on the outside just to make it look good. The toast would come out exactly the same, but this one is $20 more expensive because it looks like it can fly. Too shmancy.

Here's another example: today they served a ground meat-filled pastry for lunch. The pastry was thick and covered with sesame seeds. Sounds good, no? No. The pastry was so thick that I had trouble cutting it with my knife, and the filling was just ground meat. Since I couldn't eat the "shell" anyway, I ended up hollowing out the pastry and I just ate the meat. So, in effect, they may as well have just served the ground meat on its own. A case of too fancy, too shmancy.

I should have just had the chicken.

Well, you know what I mean

They say that an engineer will spend 100 hours trying to figure out a technological way to save an hour. I think that there are lots of "time-saving-devices" out there that take more of your time than when you didn't have them. They say that people spend inordinate amounts of time reading and responding to e-mails they never would have received had they not had email - where have you saved time? Sure there are plenty of justifications, but hey, when you do the math...

But I don't know how people live(d) without e-mail. I can ask the fellas at work if they want to go to lunch without having to speak to them - despite that they are all within cooee of my desk. Now there is an advantage. Anyway, who said that reading and replying to e-mails is not productive? How else am I supposed to get my daily dose of Dilbert, or notification that a Ford Focus, number plate XXXXX has left its lights on in car-park 1-D? By fax? Don't be ridiculous.

All that aside, I have to admit that I really love gadgets. I can't walk past an electronic doo-dad without sizing it up and determining whether or not it is worth drooling over. And if it does warrant further attention, I will then spend time determining what justifications there are for having such a thing. It will save me time. I will be more organised. It is faster. It is smaller. It is bluer, or greener or it just looks really cool and I want it.

Alas, the most gadgety thing I have is my mobile phone. PDAs, iPods and tooth-implanted-ID-systems do not grace the shelves of my tech-toy-chest, yet.

I used to have a PDA. It was a Palm Pilot m-100, one of the really low-end ones.

I liked it because I could do stuff on it. Like, write e-mails on the run and sync my calendar and teach the thing to recognise my handwriting. It broke under the stress of all those fantastic plug-ins and third-party programs I downloaded onto it. I was once in the supermarket when I bumped into a friend. I wanted to show off my cool toy so I asked him for his email address so I could whip out the PDA while he was there and have him look over my shoulder and go, "Cool". Well, the blasted thing crashed, so I said, "Oh, it sometimes does that". I did a soft-reboot and the stubborn thing just crashed again. Great. I really showed him.

I call that the "Well, you know what I mean" factor. - which is the whole point of this blog. The "Well, you know what I mean" factor comes in to play when you want to show someone something and it doesn't work. Your can then only save yourself by saying, "Well, you know what I mean".

I'll give you another, more exciting, example. Let's say you are showcasing an amazing new product in front of hundreds of people. The press is there, your family is there and, more importantly, your boss is there. You have tested everything before. The computer works, the projector works, the laser pointer works, the mic works. The time has arrived and you stand up on the stage in front of all those people, the spotlight shining down on you. You make your grand opening remarks. The crowd is waiting with baited breath. Click! Your PowerPoint presentation fires up! Click! You jump from slide to slide! Click! Click! Click! Now, for the product itself. And you get the sinking feeling. You tested the product, right? You made sure the batteries were charged, right? Click! Um. Click! Ehr...Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! "Ladies and Gentlemen. There seems to be some technical hitch with the SPX2001 right now. Ahhh. Why don't we take another look at slide 6, shall we. Here you see a picture of the SPX2001 in action. It's really cool, right? Well, you know what I mean".

See this November 2004 article in Business Week for a great example (you may have to click on the "skip this ad" link on the top right of the screen) - Microsoft's MSN Search Beta Blunder. The tag line: Oops -- Microsoft's debut of the first public version of its $100 million search engine didn't quite go according to plan

Oops, indeed.

I once built a database system for our group. I showed it to the boss before it went live, "And it has this really cool feature where you can do XYZ. Look...I don't get it. It worked before. Well, you know what I mean".

Or when someone was showing me this really great technology at work the other day, but he couldn't get the memory card out of his PDA, "Ehr, you just slide this out and then put it in there and then it works - but I can't get the card out right now. It really works. It's really really cool. Really. Well, you know what I mean".

Have you had a "Well, you know what I mean" moment?

Repetitive Conversations

Do you ever find yourself repeating the same conversation with the same people on a regular basis? Sometimes it is like a habit that you get into and it almost becomes tradition, a shame to give up (especially if you are used to holding the same exact conversation after many years). I'll give you an example: when I worked for the Windmill Hotel in 1995, one of my jobs was to work the switchboard. It took me a while to get used to the sound of the phone ringing as it was easily confused with the soft bell the elevators would use to announce their arrival in the lobby. In any case, each afternoon at about 3pm, the wife of one of the guys in management would call. This is how the conversation would go (in Hebrew):

Me: Windmill Hotel, shalom. Yossi speaking.
Caller (in a sing-song voice): Shalom. This is Mrs Cohen
Me: Shalom, Mrs Cohen
Caller (in a sing-song-voice): Can I speak with Motti, please?
Me: Certainly. Putting you through.

[pause]

Me: Mr Cohen, this is Yossi from Reception. I have your wife on the line.
Mr Cohen (in a sing-song-voice): Thank you, Yossi.

[click]

And I would have the same conversation at about the same time every day. After a while it became tiresome so I thought I would try to have some fun with it. You see, Mrs Cohen's sing-song voice really irked me and as soon as I knew that it was her on the phone, I would mimic her sing-song tone. I'm not sure that she really appreciated it, but I never got in trouble from Mr Cohen over the matter. Perhaps they thought that they managed to convert me to their weird manner of speech.

Anyway, that is the sort of repetitive conversation I'm talking about. Since then I have noticed other such repetitive conversations in my everyday life. You don't normally think about these things, but once you start paying attention, you will be surprised as to how often these repetitive conversations occur. A good example (at least in my world) is calling a taxi (conversation in Hebrew):

Sharet Taxis: Sharet!
Me: Yes, I would like to order a taxi, please.
Sharet: Address?
Me: Lachish 10
Sharet: Fine

[click]

Other examples of such conversations include the 30-second friendly exchange I have each Friday with the aid who helps my daughter off the bus; and the heavily scripted dialogue I have with the cashiers in the supermarket.

If you think about it, though, these types of conversations are really quite efficient. I mean, it takes no effort to know what to say. Unlike an actor who needs to practice, practice, practice, your lines are ingrained into your mind and mouth while the other party knows precisely how to respond - and so the conversation goes smoothly. As soon as you try to change any part of it, you run the risk of loosing any efficiency you might have gained. Here is an example of such an incident. I once needed to call a taxi but the thought of the predictability of the conversation was too painful to bear. I decided to change the script. The conversation ended up going something like this:

Sharet Taxis: Sharet!
Me: Good morning. How are you?
Sharet: [silence...then]Yes, yes, what do you want?
[I wanted to try and order a pizza, just to see how he would react, but I really needed a taxi, so I thought better of it]
Me: Well, I wanted to ask if you can have a taxi pick me up at Lachish 10.
Sharet: Address?
Me:[silence...then] Lachish 10
Sharet: Fine

[click]

Well, that didn't work out so well. I now stick to the tried and true script. But sometimes I feel that I want to just have a different conversation with these people. Why should things be scripted? I like what Scott Adams, author of The Dilbert Blog, once said to the technician after an MRI scan, "I saw this as an opportunity to pursue one of my more obscure hobbies - using sentences that have never before been uttered. I asked, "“Can you ask him to e-mail me a picture of my brain?"” The answer was no. Apparently that'’s a big file. But I enjoyed asking."